


It's Not Love

by daveck



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-18
Updated: 2012-03-18
Packaged: 2017-11-02 03:09:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/364333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daveck/pseuds/daveck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s not missing anything because there’s nothing to miss.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Not Love

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Wendy for the title. And for looking over this. And, of course, for insisting I'd like this show. ;)

It’s not love. 

John gives him that look when he thinks Sherlock isn’t watching. The furrowed brow, slight frown, head tilted as if his thoughts are too heavy to carry in his brain. 

Nonsense, of course. Sherlock is always watching. 

And he has learnt to read the cues. He knows that John feels sorry for him, that the other man thinks that he doesn’t – or isn’t – capable of understanding or desiring or, perhaps, obtaining. 

He knows that John believes that human existence is passing him by, knows the belief is reinforced by her death. 

But it’s not. It hasn’t. 

He’s not missing anything because there’s nothing to miss. 

Sherlock doesn’t believe in love. 

Lust, certainly. Attraction, he can appreciate. Chemical reactions, both. Biology, fuelling the human race, thrusting it forward into a renewable state of existence. Love is merely a concept, and a weak one at that, designed to fool the lesser element into thinking they actually wanted the snot-nosed dribbling toddler attached to their trouser leg.

He’s evolved beyond biology. The desire to procreate and produce an heir to carry forth his genetic material has never been of concern to him. 

His is a life grounded in intellect, in logic, his legacy forged in the knowledge he’ll leave behind. 

Sherlock Holmes has no requirement for love. 

That’s not to say he’s above all forms of emotion. Affection, on the other hand, is something he is familiar with. He feels a certain amount of it for John, for instance. Mrs. Hudson also. 

But it’s not affection either. 

It’s fascination. 

Pure, unadulterated fascination. 

The body is not something he yearns for, not something he mourns, but the mind-

Oh.

The Woman had shown him up, bested him at his own game, and it takes a lot of intelligence to come close to the task. 

It’s not love. 

It’s simple, begrudging respect.


End file.
